In recent years, laser diode systems such as laser diode bars have been in use in various applications such as machining of materials, treatment of surfaces, and illumination and pumping of solid-state lasers. These various applications have different requirements on the laser beam characteristics, such as the beam shape, brightness and divergence. One major difficulty in using laser diode bars and other systems is that the unconditioned output laser beam is rarely adapted for the particular application. Another problem is that the laser beam most often suffers from a lack of brightness. Therefore, laser beam conditioning and/or reshaping is required in order to optimize the output laser beam characteristics.